Migration, Remittances and Development
The World Bank organized today a discussion on the linkages between migration, remittances and development, on the occasion of the launching of the Migration and Remittances Factbook 2008.
Two of the speakers, Jason DeParle and Dilip Ratha, were respectively the writer and the main subject of an interesting article published in the New York Times last Monday: World Banker and His Cash Return Home.
Demetrios Papademetriou, Co-founder and President of The Migration Policy Institute (MPI), also gave his point of view about the linkage (or lack thereof) between migration policies and development. The Migration Policy Institute’s website is a great source of information on this topic.
For more information, check also the World Bank's Migration and Remittances site.
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poverty
Whoa! This is sad! We are going to start publisizing this stuff. We are some gifted children who want to make a difference! If you have any good ideas please post them here!!!!! Thanks for your help - the IT kids
Remittance fees: The tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg
Remittance fees: The tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg
There has been an incredible fixation by many institutions with the fees charged by the banks for the service of making the remittances. Yes, of course it is good that these fees become more competitive but it is almost laughable to think about all the resources used up in analyzing this very minor issue in an immigrants reality. Just the money spent on communicating by telephone with home or buying yourself over the border surpasses by far the sum of all the fees paid to the banks. Stop talking about the fees, and help the immigrants make more money with which they would happily pay even higher fees to the banks, if asked. Talk about shortsightedness!
That is what I said over and over while I was an ED at the World Bank; and that is what I wrote in my book Voice and Noise; and that is what I kept on saying thereafter in all the many conferences on remittances that I have assisted to to the extent that it is now almost embarrassing.
Yet I still have to ask again: How many more millions in research, conferences and publications are the development institutions to waste on this really silly and minor aspect of the migration issue?
Please help the migrants make more money instead!
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